Muslim Brotherhood Seen With Over 40 Percent of Votes in First Round

Egypt’s military junta has announced that it is postponing the release of the results from the first round of voting in the nation’s staggered elections, which will last for months. The results were supposed to come Thursday but now won’t come until Friday or Saturday.

The secular parties don’t seem to be doing nearly as well, with the Egyptian Bloc claiming “up to 20 percent” of the vote. This parliament, which will be charged with penning the new constitution, is likely to have a strongly Islamist trend to it.

But one of the Egyptian Bloc members expressed hope that their poor showing in the first round would help them in subsequent rounds, saying that it might “scare” Egyptians enough to mobilize in their favor. They accused the Muslim Brotherhood of using “religious slogans” during the campaign.

I think the problem is with the use of the largely undefined term 'Islamist' when we talk about a Muslim-majority country. Within the context of the USA this term implies any person or organization defending, or caring about, Islam or Muslims. So practically all organizations with Islam or Muslim in their name are called Islamist. If you are a well known Muslim then you have to disparage some aspects of Islam to avoid being branded as an Islamist. In a Muslim-majority country, on the other hand, if you disparage Islam your political career will be over in no time. A true secularist who openly says that Islam has no place in public sphere will certainly lose any free and fair election.

I watched an interview on Al Jazeera with the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, which was very enlightening. In reference to the protests in Egypt and in general, he stated: "Protestors who are committing acts of violence or vandalism should be stopped by the police or military (although the later are not very good at dealing with civilians), however, those who are protesting peacefully should be permitted to express themselves for as long as they desire."